Kevin Spacey to pay $31 million to 'House of Cards' studio over sexual assault allegations

The arbitrator decided that Kevin Spacey was fired for violating the sexual harassment clause in his contract and needed to pay $31 million to MRC, the production company of House of Cards, including $29.5 million in damages and $1.4 million in attorney fees. The arbitration decision was made in October 2020 and was kept secret until it was opened to the public on Monday. A three-member arbitration panel had previously rejected Spacey's appeal.

In 2017, "Star Trek: Discovery" actor Anthony Rapp revealed that when he was 14 years old and attending a party, the then 26-year-old Spacey took him to bed and wanted to have sex with him. Spacey issued an apology statement and announced his coming out. After that, he faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault, including anonymous accusations from eight crew members.

House of Cards was once Netflix's top hit, and it can be said that it established Netflix's current position in the industry, and also made its strategy of "releasing all episodes at once" (previously American dramas were released one episode per week) particularly successful, and made Spacey's image of "President Shimoki" deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Due to the sexual assault scandal, the writers wrote the president to death at the beginning of the sixth season, and let Claire Shimoki, played by Robin Wright, take over as the new president.

MRC's lawsuit against Spacey was also based on this, believing that it was because of Spacey's sexual assault allegations that the sixth season had to be completely rewritten, cut from 13 episodes to 8, which caused financial losses to the company.

Every Christmas since 2018, Spacey will release a short video to convey something to the outside world.